Our electricity turnover rose year-on-year by 7 % to 18.7 billion kWh. This growth was driven by the expansion in the electricity trading business. Substantial volume growth in the nationwide sale of electricity to industrial, commercial and secondary distribution customers enabled us to more than compensate for the reduction in volumes at industrial customers in the end customer business on account of the economic crisis. Due to competitive factors, our electricity turnover with private and business customers declined by 4 %. The rate of private household customers changing supplier at our Group was lower than the national average of around 21 % calculated by the Federal Association of the German Energy and Water Industries (BDEW) in September 2009. Our low rate of customers changing supplier is the result of successful customer retention measures and attractive electricity products.

Electricity sales (excluding electricity taxes) grew by 27% to Euro 1.8 billion. This growth was driven by volumes and prices.

Notwithstanding this sales growth, adjusted EBIT in the electricity segment fell year-on-year by Euro 29 million to Euro 35 million (– 45 %). The reduction in earnings was attributable to numerous individual factors. The main causes included increased performance and CO ₂ costs for electricity procurement, lower revenues from electricity generated at proprietary power plants, positive one-off effects in the previous year, the costs of building up sales activities at SECURA Energie GmbH and the effects of the economic crisis. The economic downturn led to a production-related decline in turnover in the industrial customer portfolio and to losses on the resale of electricity volumes not required. The losses incurred on resale resulted from the difference between original procurement prices on the futures market and current market prices.

Sales volumes in the district heating segment fell year-on-year by 624 million kWh
(– 11 %) to 4 937 million kWh, while sales dropped by Euro 9 million (– 3 %) to
Euro 294 million. These reductions were largely due to a deconsolidation item. Excluding the sales volumes supplied in the previous year through to the sale of the Polish shareholdings (639 million kWh), our district heating turnover showed a slight year-on-year increase of 0.3 %. Sales in the district heating segment excluding the Polish deconsolidation item (Euro 26 million) grew year-onyear by Euro 17 million
(+ 6 %).

Adjusted EBIT in the district heating segment decreased by Euro 2 million to Euro 36 million (– 5 %). This reduction was attributable in particular to the deconsolidation of our Polish activities in the previous year.

In the gas segment, sales volumes rose to 10.5 billion kWh, up 21% on the previous year. This strong growth was driven above all by increased sales volumes in the nationwide gas business. MVV Energie AG already supplied around 1.1 billion kWh of gas in the first year of activity in its successfully established nationwide gas business.

Unlike in the previous year and by analogy with the electricity segment, following the introduction of a new controlling and management system we now report sales activities with industrial and commercial customers and those with secondary distribution customers in combined form in the gas segment.

The year-on-year increase in sales by Euro 130 million (+ 37 %) was due first and foremost to volume growth and to the delayed introduction of price increases at our companies as of 1 October 2008 and in some cases also as of 1 January 2009. These were attributable to the sharp rise in oil prices in the previous year. In the wake of falling oil price listings, gas prices were cut by double-digit percentage amounts in the course of the 2009 calendar year. Overall, gas rates at the end of the reporting year were in some cases lower than in October 2006.

Adjusted EBIT in the gas segment improved by Euro 31 million to Euro 66 million. This increase was driven in particular by strong volume growth and the resultant positive margin effects, as well as by the aforementioned price factors. Furthermore, earnings benefited from one-off income on the sale of two local gas grids at the Mannheim subgroup and prorated revenues on the sale of a gas cavern at the Kiel subgroup. Further positive earnings items included the reversal of provisions and cost savings due to the optimisation of gas procurement for special contract customers.

Turnover in the water segment decreased by 3 % to 52.9 million m ³ in the year under report. The water business is heavily dependent on private and business customers, who account for around 83% of our water turnover. The decline was chiefly the result of lower water turnover in Kiel. The steady reduction in volumes also felt at other water supply companies in Germany is a reflection of more sparing consumption, for example due to increasing use of water-efficient household appliances.

Water sales fell by 1 % to Euro 101 million, mainly on account of lower volumes. Adjusted EBIT nevertheless rose by Euro 4 million to Euro 14 million. Alongside cost savings, this improvement was due above all to lower maintenance costs.

Sales in the value-added services segment rose by 11 % to Euro 308 million. Adjusted EBIT dropped year-on-year by Euro 2 million to Euro 18 million. Positive sales and earnings contributions came from the expansion in the heating contracting business for the real estate sector, from Industriepark Gersthofen Servicegesellschaft mbH and from the launch of operations at the refuse-derived fuel (RDF) power plant at the Korbach location. However, these were more than offset by reduced earnings contributions at the Offenbach and Kiel shareholdings, whose value-added services businesses are influenced by the shared service companies reported there, namely 24 / 7 IT-Services GmbH, Kiel, and 24 / 7 United Billing GmbH, Offenbach.

At Euro 194 million, sales in the environmental energy segment were at the same level as in the previous year. Of segment sales in the 2008/09 financial year, a sum of Euro 154 million was generated from waste incineration at our Mannheim, Offenbach and Leuna locations (previous year: Euro 157 million). We generated sales of Euro 40 million in our energy business, i.e. from the generation of electricity and steam, in the year under report (previous year: Euro 37 million).

Adjusted EBIT declined year-on-year by Euro 10 million to Euro 71 million. In conjunction with excess capacity at incineration plants in Germany, the economic downturn led commercial waste prices to fall in the waste business. Moreover, earnings were also negatively affected by downtime at the energy from waste plants in Mannheim and Leuna due to inspection measures and interruptions to operations. These led to increased costs for the procurement of gas, as well as for reorganisation, temporary storage and maintenance measures, especially at Boilers 2 and 3, which are more than 40 years old. The new Boiler 6 will commence operations in December 2009.

The “Other” line item includes services not directly allocable to any individual segment, as well as consolidation items.